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Speaking of small talk, just wanted you to know I think you've been doing some cool things around here.

lol, well I should probably just say 'thanks', given our recent convo, heheh... but I can't tell if this is a joke or not, because:

A. I respect you and your insights and appreciate any kind words or support coming from you. (Not small talk :D) and B. My posts around here likely wouldn't be called 'small' talk by anyone. (also not small talk)

Either way, thanks for continually brightening my experience here on Hive, bro. It's appreciated. 🙏 😁

It's cool how you simply showed up out of nowhere and made a splash. Many people who've shown up over the years will say that's impossible, on their way out, as they're throwing a bit of a fit. Of course, I've always disagreed and leaned more to believing they simply didn't know how.

Did you know 'they' used to dupe people into purchasing votes in order to reach the trending page with the push of a few buttons? Their selling point was often something along the lines of, "It's impossible to get noticed here."

So we had a trending page and majority of the reward pool going to those selling votes, and the people buying them, who would only earn maybe 5% of the post face value(and sometimes even lose money). And the content was atrocious simply because the 'business model' catered to folks lacking the ability to create or act in ways that draw others to them naturally.

You mentioned you browse trending. You would have had to scroll pretty far to find something worthwhile, back then. It was also more profitable to sell votes than it was to vote for free, so those refusing to buy votes, like myself, were slowly but surely running out of potential support, since consumers were being paid to look away, in an attention economy.

So you almost made it look just as easy as buying votes, but did it naturally. So that's cool.

Thanks man. It's funny, I've seen what you're describing happy many times over the years, on many platforms. People avoiding responsibility for their failures, people labeling a platform as 'unwinnable' or 'impossible.'

I believe @antisocialist hinted at this aspect of Hive's past but I didn't fully understand. So I'm glad you explained the (apparently brutal) condition of the trending page previously. I'm glad I wasn't around for that, and I'm impressed you 'stuck through it.'

slowly but surely running out of potential support, since consumers were being paid to look away, in an attention economy.

So crazy.

Anyway, I imagine 'downvotes' played a role in the solution? Or Hive devs implemented some code in a hard fork? (Man, it feels like Hive could use an entire wiki dedicated to it.) I guess you being here for 4+ years kind of makes you a 'human wiki' for Hive, and I appreciate anytime you explain the nuances. I still think about one of your earliest comments to me regarding the value in onboarding of 'consumers.'

👌

I think that particular behavioral pattern is common in life, in general. In the workplace, it's management's fault they can't get that raise or promotion. On Hive stakeholders are management in a sense, and guess who gets the blame. Or, "If not for that damn police officer, I wouldn't have this speeding ticket," instead of if not for my speeding, I wouldn't have this speeding ticket. And we're most likely all guilty of it at some point, if not on the outside it's on the inside in brainland, but of course when it's published, it stands out more. They used to call it committing steemicide and the rage quit posts were steemicide letters. So on their final day, they figured out how to get attention, but went about it the wrong way.

I'm impressed you 'stuck through it.'

'Trending' is supposed to mean content receiving high ratings organically. It was tough knowing in advance, no matter what you did, your work wouldn't be 'popular' by default. That's just superficial nonsense though. People were still interested in what I was doing regardless of ranking or post value. It's their fault I stuck through it. And the trending page wasn't a place you wanted to be, since nobody was looking there anymore. I mean, there was a dude who once purchased hundreds worth of votes just to say he'd be releasing a new post that day and everyone should stay tuned. Others were pretending they didn't buy votes and their content truly was 'popular' with the people. Often the comment sections were either quiet, full of advertisements that would come in automatically from the paid vote services used, or it was people arguing about the low quality and use of paid votes for crap like that. Yes, eventually downvotes were used, but they couldn't be used effectively until a hardfork change made them free.

And yes, consumers are important. I think if someone pulled up the data, of all the words I use, "consumers" is probably used way too much. Trying to get that message across is becoming a source of frustration for me. Almost want to put it down and walk away from it. My blog, the recent reblogged post about PeakD, there I am again yapping about consumers. LOL! Not a fun loop to be in.

Yes! Your workplace example and police-office example are great. I totally agree (though I do my best to make it 'less common', lol).

And yes, I used to do it allll the time when I was younger. (It's borderline embarrassing to look back on now.)

They had an actual term for it? 'Steemicide', haha.

Good point about it all being superficial in the end. People are people. They have eyes. They read/consume content. And I'm not surprised they were still interested in what you were doing regardless of rank.

It sounds like the trending page used to be a cesspool, yikes at that dude buying votes for an 'upcoming post' announcement...

We're of like-minds on the consumer issue, and I definitely understand the feeling of 'messaging til we're blue-in-the-face' on a topic. It's made me put certain things down and walk away before, and I wouldn't blame you for similar.

Technically that would break the loop and is an option.

But you just made a ton of solid points in a long comment thread on that 'reblogged PeakD post'... so maybe 'the message' is just 'in your blood'? (grin)

Either way, I personally am glad to benefit from it, and maybe it'll inspire me to make a post on it some day :) Hmmmm...

I was the same shithead growing up. These days I'm probably way too hard on myself.

As for this loop, well, yeah I could write a book on the topic, explain it several different ways that all lead to the same place. Could write another post, maybe update something like this for modern times:
https://peakd.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/curators-hello-where-the-hell-are-you

or this:
https://peakd.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/how-much-have-you-spent-on-entertainment-in-your-lifetime

Blah. I don't think I'm interested in creating more reading material that'll just become dated and useless.

At least the entertainment has a much longer shelf life, which is something I'm good at, but between us, working small venues can be fun, but I'd prefer a stadium at this point. I can go elsewhere, but this entity/brand/stylings I created for this platform and is to remain exclusive to Hive. It's a business for this city. I could create other ones elsewhere and you wouldn't even know it's me. Or continue along with the traditional approach as well but I've grown bored of that and the business model here is revolutionary and has the potential to be incredibly disruptive in the industry.

Back then downvotes were controlled, more or less, by one fella.
What he flagged got flagged hard, what he protected got protected.
He has (probably) left now, and the breath of freedom is very refreshing.
Mentioning his name used to get you driven from the platform.

I predicted 3 to 5 years to get the greediest bad actors out, and here we are, no longer worth their time to reap us.
Now 'we' get to make what could've been.

I'm glad you @'d me, I'ma go read those posts now, critique incoming.

Wow, such an extreme situation. I'm pretty glad I joined Hive after it seems to have been lessened/resolved.

I'm not surprised your prediction was correct, you seem to be a fan of accuracy and consistency.

Looking forward to anything you have to offer, see you on the posts. :)